[Hrennilasi]

Daily Kos: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/0...e:-458-million

One thing about statistics associated with the Great Recession is the sheer number of times you can say we're experiencing the "biggest rise" or the "steepest decline" since the Great Depression or since the government has collected data for a particular economic measurement. A record number of people collecting unemployment benefits. A record number of people out of work for more than six months. A record number of home foreclosures. A record number of bank failures. A record number of people using food stamps.



Indeed, the record on food stamps has been going on for well over two years now. In March 2009, that record was 31 million people. Now, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a whopping 45.8 million people are getting them. It would be a lot more, but only about 67 percent of the eligible people actually apply. It's just one more example of the devastation wrought by the Great Recession. And how appallingly inadequate the so-called "recovery" has been.

...

That latest count of recipients is for May, and you can be fairly certain that it's worse this month. Food stamps are, of course, one of the Great Society programs that most elected Republicans didn't want in 1964, when the program passed, and most elected Republicans now seek to cut at every opportunity. Because, you see, giving people a subsidy to buy food for themselves and their kids makes them lazy.

Take a look at Rep. Paul Ryan's budget plan passed by the House in April. As some people learn too late, oratory may be what inspires people, but budgets make policy. And that budget is a manifesto for dismantling the New Deal and Great Society programs that have been on the right-wing's hit list since they were first enacted. Ryan's plan would transform SNAP into block grants to the states and let them come up with "innovative approaches to delivering aid."

Those block grants would be funded at only 80 percent of the current level of SNAP spending. And that would means cuts of $127 billion between now and 2021. Not only would this mean a cut in benefits, the plan would impose a time limit on how long a recipient would be eligible for food stamps.

[MiniBoy]

Daily Kos: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/0...e:-458-million

Kind of proves that trickle down economics doesnt work doesnt it?

[pharmablogger]

kind of proves that trickle down economics doesnt work doesnt it?

ding, ding, ding, - we have a winner